Generally, pierce nuts have been used in industry for many decades and the improvements to the manufacturing processes of these nuts has been and continues to be, an area of great interest/effort. The present invention is the culmination of one such effort. It is believed that most, if not all, the focus in improving the manufacturing processes has been centered around the issue of increasing through-put and detection of quality defects. One such example may be found in U.S. Pat. No. 7,367,893, where a two-out die is used, incorporated herein by reference. It is believed that the area of manufacturing process flexibility has been largely ignored in the quest for higher production rates and lower rejection rates. It is also believed that manufacturing process flexibility can provide a manufacturer an advantage over those processes solely focused on speed and/or through-put. It is apparent that there is an unmet market need for a manufacturer to offer pierce nuts that can have differing characteristics and/or properties while still maintaining a high level of quality and a relatively low cost. The present invention seeks to address this unmet market need through its inventive process/method.
Among the other literature that may pertain to this technology include the following patent documents: U.S. Pat. No. 5,383,021; U.S. Pat. No. 5,348,429; U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,461; U.S. Pat. No. 4,971,499; U.S. Pat. No. 3,748,674; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,711,931, all incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.